Jamaica Broilers announces $12.50 cut in chicken prices Loop Jamaica

Black Immigrant Daily News

The producer of The Best Dressed Chicken, Jamaica Broilers, has announced a cut in prices for some of its products.

Effective August 18, prices for The Best Dressed Chicken Grade-A Whole Bird and mixed parts will be reduced by $12.50 per kilo, Jamaica Broilers said.

The announced reduction follows several rounds of price increases that began last year and which forced the Government to contemplate an intervention to protect consumers after a 10 per cent increase was announced by the company in January.

At that time, Agriculture and Fisheries Minister, Pearnel Charles Jr, told the Parliament that the Administration was looking to allow the temporary importation of leg quarters into the country as part of mitigation efforts to cushion the continued increase in the price of poultry products.

Charles Jr noted then that the price of chicken had increased by 17 per cent during the past year.

Now, the company has said the reduction comes as a result of improvements in global market conditions, including increased stability in the grain market, stabilization of the foreign exchange rate and reductions in containerized shipping costs.

“It is a very good economic signal that we are able to implement a price reduction at this time. As always, we will continue to review our prices as conditions evolve,” said Christopher Levy, president and chief executive officer of Jamaica Broilers Group.

The 17 per cent increase in the prices of chicken products that Jamaican consumers faced in the one-year period from January 2021 to January 2022, was blamed in large part on the COVID-19 pandemic, increased shipping costs and the rising price of grain.

The situation was compounded by the Ukraine-Russia war which started in February. These two countries account for up to one-third of global wheat and barley exports and ships have only been allowed to leave with grain in the past three weeks following an agreement with both sides brokered by the United Nations.

Since July 22 more than a dozen ships have set sail for the Middle East and Africa where some countries are facing severe food shortages.

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